Erica,

It’s been

I don’t think-

Erica,

You won’t see this. I’d be surprised if you ever saw this. If you ever saw

Erica,

It’s cold out in the mountains. Colder than I thought possible. I can’t even write properly without warming up my hands for thirty minutes

Erica,

I don’t know what to do. I fucked up.

Erica,

I love you.

Forever Yours

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The pen keeps slipping out of Malakai’s grasp. His fingers too shaky, the tips too numb. He stopped shivering hours ago, a worrying sign he’s sure. He thinks he read once that, that was a symptom of hypothermia. Wouldn’t that be a shocker, dying from hypothermia after being so certain he’d starve to death.

He ran out of food three days ago. Maybe, it might have been more recent or even later or… he couldn’t tell. The trees consumed any and all light. He gave up hope on keeping track of time as soon as he entered the dead forest. The soft, sweet smell was the only thing keeping him moving. The only reason he kept treading on and on and on.

He was going to die though.

He was going to die in a mountain of snow surrounded by this deafening silence and never ending fog. He was going to die and it was all because he just had to follow the Godlings damned killer. He was going to die because he refused to just… let the killer die on their own. He could have just sat back and called it quits with Mihr.

He hadn’t, and now he hasn’t felt his hands or feet in so long that he wouldn’t even be sure they were still attached if it wasn't for the fact that he could see them. His breath fans in front of his face, blending the grays with the whites, and sometimes he’d have to stop and blink. Blink and make sure he can still see his feet. Still see his hands.

He abandoned the horse once he hit the woods. The poor thing kept tripping and was sluggish in its movements. He probably should have kept it, it had meat if all else failed. Or…

Malakai blinks, drops the pen that barely worked and cracks his frozen hands against the paper. There’s a fire that flickers just in front of him. It ate away at the dead trees, giving warmth that Malakai could never fully take. Part of him debates on dropping the paper in the fire. Dropping all of the paper in the fire just for that flare of heat.

He would do anything for that warmth. To watch his hands melt and watch everything melt.

He still isn’t shivering, his hands simply were too stilted; too frozen for anything more than the jerking shake they offer whenever he moves. Frostbite, he’s sure that’s what he had. He’s sure that if he took off the heavy gloves he’d seen blue skin dipped in white icicles. Maybe on his entire hand.

Malakai’s eyes slide shut for a second, the thought of sleep almost too hard to pass up before he forces his eyes open again. He’s not sure why, it doesn’t make sense. None of it makes sense.

He was lost and dead and yeah, there’s a sweet taste lingering in the air, even in these forsaken woods, but he was dead. He was going to die. Be it now, or later or days later if he somehow staves off hypothermia. He’ll die from starvation, or he’ll die from some infection or…

He’d die. Malakai doesn’t know why he’s fighting it.

That’s a lie. He does. He smooths the parchment out one more time before slowly shoving it back into his bag. Back with all of the other letters he won’t be able to send off. Dying when he has other choices was giving up. Giving up on everything else in his life. He was going to die but…

Every time his eyes slide shut he’d be home. He’d be in front of a nice toasty fire with Erica humming away in the basement. He could see a child, boy or girl- it didn’t matter, and they’d be perched on the couch and talking about whatever cool thing happened at school and…

He’d be home and old and free of everything. The world would be safer than it was before, he’d have done his duty to his kingdom and retired from the CME and everything would be peaceful. Maybe there wouldn’t even be horrible people like Ghost in the world. Maybe the CME finally fixed things and it’s peaceful. Maybe the disease that gave people magic was finally cured.

It’s a dream that taunts him every time he’s ready to give up. The thought that maybe some miracle will happen and he will live. He’s a dead man walking, but hope just keeps him walking.

As soon as the letter was stuffed into his bag, Malakai lets himself fall back into the snow, staring straight up into the dark abyss of the branches. There’s not even a hint of the sky, not a sliver of blue amongst the drowning blackness.

Sometimes, when he stares long enough he thinks he sees movements. Like things are flying or jumping in the branches. Sometimes he can trick himself into seeing eyes that watch down on him. There’s nothing of course, no form of life in the forsaken mountains. There’s not even a hint of breeze in the air.

Everything is frozen and black. Like frostbite nipped at the forest for so long that there’s not even a vein of life left for it to claim. Every time Malakai lets his eyes shut he wonders if he’s just a new found vein in the forest that the frost is slowly biting into.

He wonders if when he dies he’ll just freeze like everything else. If he won’t even rot and will just become one with everything else in the forest. A frozen, still corpse that will melt into the trees in the centuries to come.

Another blink, too slow and thoughts too sluggish. The branches seem to move, to reach out to him and welcome him. Like Qleehl welcomes her monsters home. Another blink and everything is back to stillness.

His mouth is dry, lips blue and cracked and when he licks them there’s no wetness to offer. He breathes and the air scratches at his throat, rubbing the frozen muscle raw and rattling in his lungs. He waits, letting the icy grip of the mountains touch him before he gives one last painful gasp and shoves himself up.

Snow cascades down his shoulders, getting stuck in the fur lining his coat and sticking to the frozen skin of his face. His hands reach out, clumsily skating through the ice before he touches the small canteen he’d brought. It takes a second, making stiff fingers crack and having them wrap around the smooth metal surface and his other hand jerks too roughly to unscrew the top on the first try.

It’s the third, or fourth try before his fingers actually get a solid grasp on the lid and are able to turn it. As soon as it off it slips, stumbling into the snow and he thinks, wonders if it is even worth it. It’s not. It won’t be.

Stuffing snow in the container is quick, he doubts it’s enough as it clog at the entrance and he can’t manage to get his hands to work enough to force more snow into the tiny bottle. It slides out of his grasp when he tries to bring it closer to the fire. The metal of the bottle doesn’t even make a sound as it sinks into the snow surrounding the fire.

He stares, watches the light of the fire dance across the metal before nudging it closer. He hopes it’ll melt quickly and that there will be more than a few sips. He hopes, but last time he tried there was barely any to be satisfactory. Enough to live, with how frequently he’s been doing it, but not nearly as much as he needs.

So far everything has been enough to survive even if there’s nothing else to be had. Enough food to last the journey. Enough water to not die in the first few days. Enough heat to not cave into hypothermia.

The last one was the one that was going to be the lie. He’d die from the cold before he starved; lately it seems to be getting colder. The forest around him seems to die the longer he’s there. He stopped moving forward once he ran out of food, mostly sticking to the foot of the mountains.

Further up the world turned darker. The world more sinister where even the Godlings feared to trespass.

He’s a block of ice, sitting in front of the slow dying fire. He doesn’t move or fidget, small rasping breaths the only thing giving away his life. He blinks.

He almost prefers the wastelands with its howling winds. Everything moves there, the wind this angry force that forces everything to bend to its will. He’d seen rabbits out there, or at least what he thought were rabbits. Before the forest it seemed hopeful, the taste strong in the wind and the thought of home strong in his heart.

The forest chipped away at everything. A slow start at first, the wind being the first to vanish. Then the trees thickened and the sky followed the wind. Daylight and night mixed and the branches kept reaching and grabbing for him. His horse was the third thing to go, thorns catching on it at every move and the poor thing could barely stand up after falling.

The snow thickened the further in he went, clinging to his boots for every step.

The sweet taste of magic hangs in the air, but it is faint. He could pull and tug at it, but then it would vanish as if it was never there. A never ending tease that he has long since given up on. It lingers, and he lingers and death lingers in the backdrop.

He blinks; snow stays at the mouth of the container and it glistens.

Not a soul moves; the Qleehl tightens its icy grasp on Malakai with every frigid heartbeat.

He blinks.

He closes his eyes, death awaits with a promise of warmth and happiness. A warm home with a busy wife and lovely child with a blue room.

He blinks.

The snow slowly melts. The fire slowly dies.

He blinks.

Each time his eyes close it’s there, this tantalizing thought. It’s a fight to open them once more, to stare at the flickering flames in front of him. It would be so easy, to shut his eyes and not think. To just let go and embrace the afterlife. They always said Death was the tricky one.

Death was the godling no one should trust. The one that promises warmth and safety and peace. The calm one that sat in the back and offered a hand with the sweetest smile. Like a mother’s embrace, some would say. That was Death. A cruel bastard that was more and more tempting every time he lets his eyes close.

Qleehl and Death had an affair once, he thinks. He didn’t remember how the story went, just that it was at the very beginning. Before Qleehl was exiled. Death probably stayed fond of her even after, with how the godling stalked up and down her forests. Given, maybe Qleehl was the one fond of Death.

She was the one with the icy punishing grip after all. Death just waited in the background, biding his time.

He blinks.

Sometimes, he thinks he sees them. Or Death at least. He knows it's a hallucination or dehydration or even the probable hypothermia talking, but sometimes he sees the fabled eight legged godling with the scythe hovering over his shoulder. It’s only for a second, he blinks and then there’s nothing but the bark of trees and the reaching branches.

Death lingers, but often not in sight. He prefers to creep up behind and catch his victims unaware.

Malakai likes to think himself aware. He knows what's coming, can feel it in his bones. The icy grip of Qleehl only reminds him further. He blinks.

The snow drips off of the canteen. The fire flickers. His bones protest any move, grinding against one another and sticking like wet ice.

It’s a hallucination, that he’s sure. There’s a girl, with bleeding hair and she’s drowning in fur. A monster of the abyss, maybe Qleehl herself. The girl hovers, head cocked to the side as if listening to his slowing heartbeat. He blinks.

She remains, standing in the snow as crimson drips all around her. It’s like a death scene, with all the red around her. The white enhances it; the black fur drowns in it.

The stories always said the Death was the monster and that Qleehl was the beauty. Or that she was the beauty before her exile. It’d make sense, if Death was close by that she’d hide her monstrosity to entice the godling. Maybe another war being fought. For what, Malakai would never know.

He blinks.

The girl creeps closer, quiet like the forest around her. She’s a child really, the closer she gets the more Malakai can see. She still has the fat cheeks from childhood, her head more like a bobble head over the tiny body. The fur dwarfed her, making her swim it. Her bleeding hair continues to drip into the snow and taint it.

He blinks and the girl is across from him as she reaches out with small, small hands. Small bare hands. Her hands were pale, tiny. Not frozen, not blue.

He blinks and she’s tugging at his gloves. He lets her, watching, waiting. His blood crawls in his veins, tripping at every shard of ice. His bones screech when he dares to move so he doesn’t. He just sits there as frostbitten skin is shown.

It’s black, his hand. Not blue. Black and muggy looking. It looks like rot, like it’s dying.

He stares at it. Watches the creeping death on his hand and he wonders if that’s everywhere. He hasn’t stopped to look, too scared to even think of it. He knew, he knew it was frostbite, but he was thinking blue with white. Not this ugly black rot.

He blinks.

She looks up at him, with these wide green eyes. Child eyes, huge in her face and so innocent and naïve. He drags his eyes to stare back. It’s the face of Qleehl, he’s sure. A trick as Death creeps behind. He has one last moment before Death creeps behind him and embraces him. One last breath. One last sight and it’s a child.

Maybe, maybe it isn’t Qleehl, but his own child. Maybe that’s what his child would grow up to be. She’d be beautiful of course, especially if she took after her mother. She’d be the most precious thing in the world. He moves his other hand to cover hers and his rot.

The movement aches, his bones protest and it’s jarring in every sense of the meaning. His brown glove covers her pale, pale hand and-

There’s blood that drips onto the snow. Steam mixing with the fog.

He blinks.

The girl smiles at him, this bright smile and she shatters the deafening silence when she asks, “You won’t hurt me will you?” He tries to open his mouth, to agree that he’d never. Not in a million years.

But-

Dying hurts people doesn’t it? She’d be growing up without a father. It’d just be her and Erica and…

The words stick in his throat; never mind that she wasn’t even real to begin with. He blinks, Death drags at his soul with the sweetest of promises.

The girl tugs at his hand, “You won’t right? You won’t let me die?” It’s the oddest question. Everything about the girl, the hallucination was the oddest thing. She wraps both of her hands around his one rotting hand, ignoring the gloved one hovering uselessly overhead.

“I’d…” The words are like sandpaper on his throat, dry and scratching. He feels like blood is dripping down his throat with the one word. He swallows, a copper and sweet taste mixing into each other again before he adds, “never.”

Her smile brightens, “Your life to mine. Blood to blood. We will share wounds and life. To live together and die together. Your magic for my magic.” She speaks softly, nearly mumbling into her chest as she watches their hands and Malakai just….

He blinks.

He blinks and waits for the hallucination to turn to dust. He waits and waits. The fire grows steadily smaller and snow continues to melt into his canteen. The girl continues to sit in front of him. Looking up with big green eyes. He blinks.

She suddenly pulls away, shoving his glove back into his rotten hand. She digs into the fur she drowns in before pulling out a leather satchel and pushing it towards him. “Drink. You’re dehydrated. I can…” She looks around, bleeding hair dripping all over the snow before she spots the fire, “fix that. Warmth is good, right?”

Sweetness drowns the air, no longer a tease, but a promise. He’s tempted to reach for it, but he fears it fading away. He fears the disappointment that follows. He blinks.

“You should drink that.” She’s commanding, for a child. For a hallucination. He wonders, would his child be so demanding? Probably, Erica was quite bossy. He couldn’t see any child of hers not being bossy. He obeys without question, rotten hand dropping the glove to pick up the satchel and bring it to his mouth.

The water is… cold. But soothing, like a balm against wounds. He imagines the flesh knitting itself back as he gulps and gulps and gulps.

It’s like it freezes, after healing the open wounds. It freezes and skips the driest part before chilling his innards. “Careful, careful.” The girl is there, her tiny little hand touching his rotting one. She’s got a cut, right across her palm. Blood to mix with the oozing blood on her head. He blinks.

“You’re-“ His voice is a croak and he can’t even bring himself to finish the sentence. He tries to drop the satchel and reach for her hand, but his fingers don’t cooperate. His eyes, it seems, was enough of a clue. She offers that small little smile and says,

“You should worry about yourself before me. I’m not the one dying after all.” She’s correct, of course she is. She’s a figment of his imagination, you can’t die if you never existed to begin with. She watches him with suspicious eyes, as if debating something. He blinks.

She goes by the fire, shifting a glance his way before she vanishes. Malakai sits alone, all by himself in the quiet stillness of the Qleehl mountains. One last vision before death. The comforting embrace of Death closing in and Qleehl’s grip tightening with every heartbeat.

He was going to die.

He blinks.

The fire grows, slowly, steadily. As if being fed by his ever draining life. The snow drips and drips, right into the canteen. Melting, slowly. He blinks, slowly.

She’s back, tiny hands reaching out to him. “Come on, get closer.” She tugs at rotting flesh, hand ghosting over the black taint. “Up, up.” The child is still bossy, demanding the impossible out of him when merging with the snow and ice started to sound inevitable.

She leans back, the black fur consuming her and moving around her like a storm brewing. He blinks and she’s gone. Instead there stood a white haired man with ice as skin and bloody eyes. The black fur draped over his shoulder and-

It’s Death. It had to be Death. The godling of death and bones and poisons. His magic was sour, sweet and sour and he drowned everything around him. He reached out, snow frozen hand to grab at Malakai and drag him closer. Malakai blinks and Death still stands there, severe and sharp.

The vision and then the embrace.

He knew he was going to die.

Malakai closes his eyes, sees that cozy little house and the child sitting on the couch and Erica is curled up next to him and-

He fights to open his eyes again.

The fire is suddenly closer. A huge roaring thing that demands life. It throws out it’s warmth like it’s a net and Malakai can’t help but soak it in. When he looks around, Death is gone. Instead the girl is back, watching with green, green eyes. “Warm up.” She demands, “We’re leaving once you’re warmer.”

It makes no sense. Leaving, makes no sense. He doesn’t know where they would go. Where he could possibly go in the forest of monsters. Nothing moves but the flickering fire; neither of them breathe. Air just freezes to his lungs as if it was water before it rattles free and scrapers across his throat.

He blinks.

“Come closer.” She beckons and his bones melt forward just the tiniest bit. Just a bit closer to the fire before it starts eating into his flesh and clothes. It burns; the closer he gets the more it burns. He can’t tell if it hurts, but it burns. “Not your hands.” She nudges his fingertips away and watches.

They wait.

The snow continues to drip, Malakai doesn’t even know if it snow anymore. The fire continues to grow.

He continues to burn.

She sits close to him, the embrace of Death chasing off some of Qleehl’s grip. She sits close and touches the fire with a stick and they wait. He doesn’t know what they wait for. Doesn’t know if maybe Death decided it wasn’t time yet. Maybe Malakai needed to stop dreaming about the cozy home. Maybe Death wasn’t fond of Qleehl after all.

“Let’s go.” The soft voice sounds like a gunshot. The girl is standing up, brushing off snow from the black sea she drowned in before reaching out her tiny, pale hand again. “Come on, I know somewhere warmer.” Malakai blinks up at her and it’s the end. Maybe there is no warm embrace from death, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

The light being a little girl who very much might have been his if he got to live to see the day. Maybe the end of the tunnel is a home, not the real one; but one he could live happily in. A home that could have been if it weren’t for his stubbornness. A home he could have seen if he hadn’t demanded they follow Ghost to the bitter end.

“Okay.”

The last word he’d ever say scrapes across his tongue, digging into the frozen flesh and tearing as the word escaped into the air. He reaches up with his rotten hand and takes her tiny hand in his. Broken knees lift him up, forcing his body to move forward and he follows.

The fire burns behind them, the dying embers bidding them goodbye as they went deeper into the Qleehl.

The trees welcomed them, darkness swallowing them up as the branches reached and tugged at the fur wrapped around their bodies. The girl was stubborn, tugging at Malakai every time he paused. Breaking the suffocating silence to tell him to hurry hurry.

The tunnel had monsters after all. That’s what the stories said, he remembers. That when you die, there would be demons and monsters to cage your soul. That Death only shows you the possibility, you have to make the journey by yourself.

The snow doesn’t even crunch under their feet. The trees don’t snap and the wind doesn’t blow. It’s the stillness of death surrounding them, silence dragging down on their shoulders. Not even the rasping breaths that forced their way out of Malakai broke the silence.

Death was a… quiet place. A quiet and dark place. It’d be lonely too, if it weren’t for the tiny hand he couldn’t even feel in his grasp. He kept staring at it, this bright little beacon in his rotting hand that held so much promise.

The monsters catch them. They trip up Malakai and he’s buried under snow. Breathing becomes an impossibility, too much weight on his chest to even be bearable. The hand slips, slips and-

There’s nothing.

No light at the end of the tunnel. Just darkness, an ever pressing darkness weighing him down. There’s nothing warm about it, nothing comforting. It’s the Qleehl’s grasp tightening around his throat and choking down his every breath.

The monsters caught him.

He blinks.

The girl’s back, tugging at him. Her mouth moves, there’s no sound.

Everything is frozen.

Quiet.

Still.

The monsters stalk, circling,

Circling.

A hard tug, for a second he saw Death and then it’s the girl again. The world is sour, a consuming sour. A feeling of hurry hurry hurry. There’s a storm brewing, the winds building up in the wastelands.

There’s not though, everything is still. Deathly still. Deathly quiet. Everything is dead already.

He stumbles forward, dragged forward by a pale hand that saved him from monsters.

There’s a light at the end of the tunnel again. A cabin. He can see it in the shadows, trees dipping into the wooden walls, branches trying to consume the little piece of light it offers.

The monsters fall behind, vanish into the darkness. They melt back into the trees and suddenly everything is so loud. A deafening roar ripping around him. The Qleehl screams her hatred; Death celebrates his victory. The girl opens the door of the cabin and Malakai falls through.

“Fuck. I hate it here, I hate it, hate it, hate it!” The girl kicks the door shut, forcing the angry winds away. Keeping them outside, all of the monsters outside. Malakai was inside, in the warmth and safety of Death.

He blinks.

She melts away, sourness sticking to the air and there’s suddenly an older man standing there. Gray hair wild and the black fur barely covers the broad, broad shoulders. There’s scars, ripping all over the face and the golden skin available and he’s storming over towards the fire place.

It’s dying, the fire. Little gasping embers left behind and reaching. The old man throws them around before dropping a few blocks of wood into the fire and they scream. It’s a ghastly sound, like the monsters outside. Something furious and monstrous.

“Get closer to the fire.” He’s demanding, like the little girl was demanding. Malakai blinks, his mind spinning and spinning. The sweetness suffocates, sticking to the back of his throat like blood. “Come on, I know you’re slow but you can’t be that slow. Get by the damned fire before you freeze to death.”

Time stills like the outside, like Death is just waiting in bated breath for something to come. Then Malakai moves, a stumble further in and the old man stays watching by the fireplace. There’s a pause when Malakai settles in front of the fire, his rotting hands raised to the heat as he lets his flesh burn.

“You should heal that. White magic aren’t you?” The voice is gruff, demanding and dark. The old man crosses his arms, leaning against the wall. The black fur swallows up his torso, blending with the graying, frayed hair.

The sweetness drowns and his hands burn like never before.

“You have pretty severe frostbite right there. I think the old cure back in the day was cutting off the limbs. Now what we’re doing here is… healing your dead skin. I’m not exactly sure how, but just…” It’s the girl again, the voice squeaking at the end and the black fur drags at the ground. “I don’t know. Magic yourself some working hands.”

The world spins and spins like a top. The warmth eats away at the cold and the first shiver wrecks Malakai. He opens his mouth, his frozen skin shatters like ice and no sound escapes.

She’s moving around, dropping the black fur on the couch before vanishing out of sight. Malakai sits there on frozen knees, ice melting away from his skin as the fire bathes him in a burning warmth. The air is sweet, sickening sweet with a sour aftertaste and chokes his every breath. It sticks to the open wounds, mixing with the copper taste of blood with every swallow.

“I’m going to get us some food. Not many options other than canned spam and soup. Ivory had the oddest taste in food. Everything else went bad so… don’t expect anything grand but…” A pause, a considering hum and then the voice changes to that of a young boys, “some food is better than none right?”

Malakai doesn’t dare to look up at the girl, boy, man, whatever. He stares steadfast into the fire, every muscle tense and stabbing. His bare hand rots, black blood dripping onto the wooden floor in front of the fire. His ears ring, Qleehl’s anger echoing in the false safety of the cabin.

“What’s your name anyway? We’re going to be stuck for a long while so…” The voice stays the same, steady footsteps echoed around him as the person, monster, killer stalks behind. Malakai can’t even open his mouth, lips stitched shut with ice and snow. The footsteps creep nearer and then the voice rings right inside his ear, “Hey, your name? Or… are you okay? I’m not sure how long you were out there. I have a suspicion but…”

There’s bloody eyes staring at him, Death’s face looming over his shoulder and Malakai can’t look away. His rotting hand moves, jarring and slow and he can’t feel anything, but he knows-

On his waist, somewhere, with the belt and bags and-

Somewhere-

Something digs into his hip, his hand curls and he thinks maybe-

Maybe-

A knife, or anything, anything-

Malakai blinks, the sweet taste suffocates everything-

The bloody eyes flicker to the side that Malakai refused to acknowledge. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. You should heal yourself, see what happens.” There’s an impish grin. Like the boy, the monster knows something he doesn’t. An impossibility, a possibility, Malakai’s mind spins.

He raises a hand, a pale, pale hand of frosty skin. Blood seeps from a cut across the palm. Suddenly the hand shrinks, the girl with bleeding hair stares at him with wide, innocent eyes and her soft voice says, “You said you wouldn’t hurt me after all.”